From the author of "The Beginning of Spring, The Gate of Angels" and "Offshore". Penelope Fitzgerald's new novel is set in Germany at the end of the eighteenth century. It is the story of the brilliant and young Fritz von Hardenberg, who later became the great romantic poet and philosopher Novalis, and his brief love affair with twelve year old Sophie von Kuhn. "She is an intelligent writer, superbly and unfailingly so. But her dry wit is also allied to a great talent for emotional sympathy. A marvellously perceptive and enjoyable novel" Lucy Hughes-Hallett, "Sunday Times".